Part 3

Man liveth from hour to hour, and knoweth not what may happen; Influences circle him on all sides, and yet must he answer for his actions: For the being that is master of himself, bendeth events to his will, But a slave to selfish passion is the wavering creature of circumstance. To this man temptation is a poison, to that man it addeth vigour; And each may render to himself influences good or evil. As thou directest the power, harm or advantage will follow, And the torrent that swept the valley, may be led to turn a mill; The wild electric flash, that could have kindled comets, May by the ductile wire give ease to an ailing child. For outward matter or event fashion not the character within, But each man, yielding or resisting, fashioneth his mind for himself.

Some have said, What is in a name?--most potent plastic influence; A name is a word of character, and repetition stablisheth the fact: A word of rebuke, or of honour, tending to obscurity or fame; And greatest is the power of a name, when its power is least suspected. A low name is a thorn in the side, that hindereth the footman in his running; But a name of ancestral renown shall often put the racer to his speed. Few men have grown unto greatness whose names are allied to ridicule, And many would never have been profligate, but for the splendour of a name. A wise man scorneth nothing, be it never so small or homely, For he knoweth not the secret laws that may bind it to great effects. The world in its boyhood was credulous, and dreaded the vengeance of the stars, The world in its dotage is not wiser, fearing not the influence of small things: Planets govern not the soul, nor guide the destinies of man, But trifles, lighter than straws, are levers in the building up of character. A man hath the tiller in his hand, and may steer against the current, Or may glide down idly with the stream, till his vessel founder in the whirlpool.

OF MEMORY.

Where art thou, storehouse of the mind, garner of facts and fancies,-- In what strange firmament are laid the beams of thine airy chambers? Or art thou that small cavern, the centre of the rolling brain, Where still one sandy morsel testifieth man's original? Or hast thou some grand globe, some common hall of intellect, Some spacious market-place for thought, where all do bring their wares, And gladly rescued from the littleness, the narrow closet of a self, The privileged soul hath large access, coming in the livery of learning? Live we as isolated worlds, perfect in substance and spirit, Each a sphere, with a special mind, prisoned in its shell of matter? Or rather, as converging radiations, parts of one majestic whole, Beams of the Sun, streams from the River, branches of the mighty Tree, Some bearing fruit, some bearing leaves, and some diseased and barren,-- Some for the feast, some for the floor, and some--how many--for the fire? Memory may be but a power of coming to the treasury of Fact, A momentary self-desertion, an absence in spirit from the Now, An actual coursing hither and thither, by the mind, slipped from its leash, A life, as in the mystery of dreams, spent within the limits of a moment.

A brutish man knoweth not this, neither can a fool comprehend it, But there be secrets of the Memory, deep, wondrous, and fearful. Were I at Petra, could I not declare, My soul hath been here before me? Am I strange to the columned halls, the calm dead grandeur of Palmyra? Know I not thy mount, O Carmel! Have I not voyaged on the Danube, Nor seen the glare of Arctic snows,--nor the black tents of the Tartar? Is it then a dream, that I remember the faces of them of old, While wandering in the grove with Plato, and listening to Zeno in the porch? Paul have I seen, and Pythagoras, and the Stagyrite hath spoken me friendly, And His meek eye looked also upon me, standing with Peter in the palace. Athens and Rome, Persepolis and Sparta, am I not a freeman of you all? And chiefly can my yearning heart forget thee, O Jerusalem?-- For the strong magic of conception, mingled with the fumes of memory, Giveth me a life in all past time, yea, and addeth substance to the future. Be ye my judges, imaginative minds, full-fledged to soar into the sun, Whose grosser natural thoughts the chemistry of wisdom hath sublimed, Have ye not confessed to a feeling, a consciousness strange and vague, That ye have gone this way before, and walk again your daily life, Tracking an old routine, and on some foreign strand, Where bodily ye have never stood, finding your own footsteps? Hath not at times some recent friend looked out an old familiar, Some newest circumstance or place teemed as with ancient memories? A startling sudden flash lighteth up all for an instant, And then it is quenched, as in darkness, and leaveth the cold spirit trembling.

Memory is not wisdom; idiots can rote volumes: Yet, what is wisdom without memory? a babe that is strangled in its birth, The path of the swallow in the air, the path of the dolphin in the waters, A cask running out, a bottomless chasm: such is wisdom without memory. There be many wise, who cannot store their knowledge; Yet from themselves are they satisfied, for the fountain is within: There be many who store, but have no wisdom of their own, Lumbering their armoury with weapons their muscles cannot lift: There be many thieves and robbers, who glean and store unlawfully, Calling in to memory's help some cunningly devised Cabala: But to feed the mind with fatness, to fill thy granary with corn, Nor clog with chaff and straw the threshing-floor of reason, Reap the ideas, and house them well; but leave the words high stubble: Strive to store up what was thought, despising what was said. For the mind is a spirit, and drinketh in ideas, as flame melteth into flame; But for words it must pack them as on floors, cumbrous and perishable merchandize. To be pained for a minute, to fear for an hour, to hope for a week--how long and weary! But to remember fourscore years, is to look back upon a day. An avenue seemeth to lengthen in the eyes of the wayfaring man, But let him turn, those stationed elms crowd up within a yard; Pace the lamp-lit streets of some sleeping city, The multitude of cressets shall seem one, in the false picture of perspective; Even so, in sweet treachery, dealeth the aged with himself, He gazeth on the green hill-tops, while the marshes beneath are hidden; And the partial telescope of memory pierceth the blank between, To look with lingering love at the fair star of childhood. Life is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints; Whiles it spinneth there is light; stop it, all is darkness: Life is as a morsel of frankincense burning in the hall of Eternity; It is gone, but its odorous cloud curleth to the lofty roof: Life is as a lump of salt, melting in the temple-laver; It is gone,--yet its savour reacheth to the farthest atom: Even so, for evil or for good, is life the criterion of a man, For its memories of sanctity or sin pervade all the firmament of being. There is but the flitting moment, wherein to hope or to enjoy, But in the calendar of Memory, that moment is all time.

THE DREAM OF AMBITION.

I left the happy fields that smile around the village of Content, And sought with wayward feet the torrid desert of Ambition. Long time, parched and weary, I travelled that burning sand, And the hooded basilisk and adder were strewed in my way for palms; Black scorpions thronged me round, with sharp uplifted stings, Seeming to mock me as I ran; (then I guessed it was a dream,-- But life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.) So I toiled on, doubting in myself, up a steep gravel cliff, Whose yellow summit shot up far into the brazen sky; And quickly, I was wafted to the top, as upon unseen wings Carrying me upward like a leaf: (then I thought it was a dream,-- Yet life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.) So I stood on the mountain, and behold! before me a giant pyramid, And I clomb with eager haste its high and difficult steps; For I longed, like another Belus, to mount up, yea, to heaven, Nor sought I rest until my feet had spurned the crest of earth.

Then I sat on my granite throne under the burning sun, And the world lay smiling beneath me, but I was wrapt in flames; (And I hoped, in glimmering consciousness, that all this torture was a dream,-- Yet life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.) And anon, as I sat scorching, the pyramid shuddered to its root, And I felt the quarried mass leap from its sand foundations: Awhile it tottered and tilted, as raised by invisible levers,-- (And now my reason spake with me; I knew it was a dream: Yet I hushed that whisper into silence, for I hoped to learn of wisdom, By tracking up my truant thoughts, whereunto they might lead.) And suddenly, as rolling upon wheels, adown the cliff it rushed, And I thought, in my hot brain, of the Muscovites' icy slope; A thousand yards in a moment we ploughed the sandy seas, And crushed those happy fields, and that smiling village, And onward, as a living thing, still rushed my mighty throne, Thundering along, and pounding, as it went, the millions in my way: Before me all was life, and joy, and full-blown summer, Behind me death and woe, the desert and simoom. Then I wept and shrieked aloud, for pity and for fear; But might not stop, for, comet-like, flew on the maddened mass Over the crashing cities, and falling obelisks and towers, And columns, razed as by a scythe, and high domes, shivered as an egg-shell, And deep embattled ranks, and women, crowded in the streets, And children, kneeling as for mercy, and all I had ever loved, Yea, over all, mine awful throne rushed on with seeming instinct,-- And over the crackling forests, and over the rugged beach, And on with a terrible hiss through the foaming wild Atlantic That roared around me as I sat, but could not quench my spirit,-- Still on, through startled solitudes we shattered the pavement of the sea, Down, down, to that central vault, the bolted doors of hell; And these, with horrid shock, my huge throne battered in, And on to the deepest deep, where the fierce flames were hottest, Blazing tenfold as conquering furiously the seas that rushed in with me,-- And there I stopped: and a fearful voice shouted in mine ear, "Behold the home of Discontent; behold the rest of Ambition!"

OF SUBJECTION.

Law hath dominion over all things, over universal mind and matter; For there are reciprocities of right, which no creature can gainsay. Unto each was there added by its Maker, in the perfect chain of being, Dependencies and sustentations, accidents, and qualities, and powers: And each must fly forward in the curve, unto which it was forced from the beginning; Each must attract and repel, or the monarchy of Order is no more. Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of God, And they radiate from that sun to the circling edges of creation. Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected Himself unto Laws, And God is the primal grand example of free unstrained obedience; His perfection is limited by right, and cannot trespass into wrong, Because He hath established Himself as the fountain of only good, And in thus much is bounded, that the evil hath He left unto another, And that dark other hath usurped the evil which Omnipotence laid down. Unto God there exist impossibilities; for the True One cannot lie, Nor the Wise One wander from the track which He hath determined for Himself: For His will was purposed from eternity, strong in the love of order; And that will altereth not, as the law of the Medes and Persians. God is the origin of order, and the first exemplar of His precept; For there is subordination of His Essence, self-guided unto holiness; And there is subordination of His Persons, in due procession of dignity; For the Son, as a son, is subject; and to Him doth the Spirit minister: But these things be mysteries to man, he cannot reach nor fathom them, And ever must he speak in paradox, when labouring to expound his God; For, behold, God is alone, mighty in unshackled freedom; And with those wondrous Persons abideth eternal equality.

So then, start ye from the fountain, and follow the river of existence; For its current is bounded throughout by the banks of just subordination: Thrones, and dominions, and powers, Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim, Angels, and flaming ministers, and breathing chariots and harps. For there are degrees in heaven, and varied capabilities of bliss, And steps in the ladder of Intelligence, and ranks in approaches to Perfection: Doubtless, reverence is given, as their due, to the masters in wisdom; Doubtless, there are who serve; or a throne would have small glory. Regard now the universe of matter, the substance of visible creation, Which of old, with well-observing truth, the Greek hath surnamed, Order: Where is there an atom out of place? or a particle that yieldeth not obedience? Where is there a fragment that is free? or one thing the equal of another?-- The chain is unbroken down to man, and beyond him the links are perfect: But he standeth solitary sin, a marvel of permitted chaos.

And shall this seeming error in the scale of due subordination Be a spot of desert unreclaimed, in the midst of the vineyard of the Lord? Shall his presumptuous pride snap the safe tether of connexion, And his blind selfish folly refuse the burden of maintenance? O man, thou art a creature; boast not thyself above the law: Think not of thyself as free: thou art bound in the trammels of dependence. What is the sum of thy duty, but obedience to righteous rule; To the great commanding Oracle, uttered by delegated organs? Thou canst not render homage to abstract Omnipresent Power, Save through the concrete symbol of visible ordained authority. Those who obey not man, are oftenest found rebels against God; And seldom is the delegate so bold, as to order what he knoweth to be wrong. Yet mark me, proud gainsayer! I say not, obey unto sin; But, where the Principal is silent, take heed thou despise not the Deputy: And He that loveth order, will bless thee for thy faith, If thou recognize His sanction in the powers that fashion human laws.

Thou, the vicegerent of the Lord, His high anointed image, Towards whom a good man's loyalty floweth from the heart of his religion, Thou, whose deep responsibilities are fathomed by a nation's prayers, Whom wise men fear for while they love, and envy thee nothing but thy virtues, From thy dizzy pinnacle of greatness, remember thou also art a subject, And the throne of thine earthly glory is itself but the footstool of thy God. The homage thy kingdoms yield thee, regard thou as yielded unto Him; And while girt with all the majesty of state, consider thee the Lord's chief servant: So shalt thou prosper, and be strong, grafted on the strength of Another; So shall thy royal heart be happy, in being humble. And thou shalt flourish as an oak, the monarch of thine island forests, Whose deep-dug roots are twisted around the stout ribs of the globe, That mocketh at the fury of the storm, and rejoiceth in summer sunshine, Glad in the smiles of heaven, and great in the stability of earth.

A ruler hath not power for himself, neither is his pomp for his pride; But beneath the ermine of his office should he wear the rough hair-cloth of humility. Nevertheless, every way obey him, so thou break not a higher commandment; For Nero was an evil king, yet Paul prescribeth subjection. If the rulers of a nation be holy, the Lord hath blessed that nation; If they be lewd and impious, chastisement hath come upon that people: For the bitterest scourge of a land is ungodliness in them that govern it, And the guilt of the sons of Josiah drove Israel weeping into Babylon. Yet be thou resolute against them, if they change the mandates of thy God, If they touch the ark of His covenant, wherein all His mercies are enshrined: Be resolute, but not rebellious; lest thou be of the company of Korah: Set thy face against them as a flint: but be not numbered with Abiram. Daniel nobly disobeyed; but not from a spirit of sedition: And Azarias shouted from the furnace,--I will not bow down, O KING. If truth must be sacrificed to unity, then faithfulness were folly; If man must be obeyed before God, the martyrs have bled in vain: Yet none of that blessed army reviled the rulers of the land, They were loud and bold against the sin, but bent before the ensign of authority. Honesty, scorning compromise, walketh most suitably with Reverence; Otherwise righteous daring may show but as obstinate rebellion: Therefore, suffer not thy censure to lack the savour of courtesy, And remember, the mortal sinneth, but the staff of his power is from God.

Man, thou hast a social spirit, and art deeply indebted to thy kind: Therefore claim not all thy rights; but yield, for thine own advantage. Society is a chain of obligations, and its links must support each other; The branch can not but wither, that is cut from the parent vine. Wouldst thou be a dweller in the woods, and cast away the cords that bind thee, Seeking, in thy bitterness or pride, to be exiled from thy fellows? Behold, the beasts shall hunt thee, weak, naked, houseless outcast, Disease and Death shall track thee out, as bloodhounds in the wilderness: Better to be vilest of the vile, in the hated company of men, Than to live a solitary wretch, dreading and wanting all things; Better to be chained to thy labour, in the dusky thoroughfares of life, Than to reign monarch of Sloth, in lonesome savage freedom.

Whence then cometh the doctrine, that all should be equal and free?-- It is the lie that crowded hell, when Seraphs flung away subjection. No man is his neighbour's equal, for no two minds are similar, And accidents, alike with qualities, have every shade but sameness: The lightest atom of difference shall destroy the nice balance of equality, And all things, from without and from within, make one man to differ from another. We are equal and free! was the watchword that spirited the legions of Satan; We are equal and free! is the double lie that entrappeth to him conscripts from earth: The messengers of that dark despot will pander to thy licence and thy pride, And draw thee from the crowd where thou art safe, to seize thee in the solitary desert. Woe unto him whose heart the syren-song of Liberty hath charmed; Woe unto him whose mind is bewitched by her treacherous beauty; In mad zeal flingeth he away the fetters of duty and restraint, And yieldeth up the holocaust of self to that fair Idol of the Damned. No man hath freedom in aught, save in that from which the wicked would be hindered, He is free toward God and good; but to all else a bondman.

Thou art in a middle sphere, to render and receive honour; If thy king commandeth, obey; and stand not in the way with rebels: But if need be, lay thy hand upon thy sword, and fear not to smite a traitor, For the universe acquitteth thee with honour, fighting in defence of thy king. If a thief break thy dwelling, and thou take him, it were sin in thee to let him go; Yea, though he pleadeth to thy mercy, thou canst not spare him and be blameless: For his guilt is not only against thee, it is not thy moneys or thy merchandize, But he hath done damage to the Law, which duty constraineth thee to sanction. Feast not thine appetite of vengeance, remembering thou also art a man, But weep for the sad compulsion, in which the chain of Providence hath bound thee: Mercy is not thine to give; wilt thou steal another's privilege? Or send abroad, among thy neighbours, a felon whom impunity hath hardened? Remember the Roman father, strong in his stern integrity, And let not thy slothful self-indulgence make thee a conniver at the crime. Also, if the knife of the murderer be raised against thee or thine, And through good providence and courage, thou slay him that would have slain thee, Thou losest not a tittle of thy rectitude, having executed sudden justice; Still mayst thou walk among the blessed, though thy hands be red with blood. For thyself, thou art neither worse nor better; but thy fellows should count thee their creditor: Thou hast manfully protected the right, and the right is stronger for thy deed. Also, in the rescuing of innocence, fear not to smite the ravisher; What though he die at thy hand? for a good name is better than the life; And if Phineas had everlasting praise in the matter of Salu's son, With how much greater honour standeth such a rescuer acquitted? Uphold the laws of thy country, and fear not to fight in their defence: But first be convinced in thy mind; for herein the doubter sinneth. Above all things, look thou well around, if indeed stern duty forceth thee To draw the sword of justice, and stain it with the slaughter of thy fellows.

She, that lieth in thy bosom, the tender wife of thy affections, Must obey thee, and be subject, that evil drop not on thy dwelling. The child that is used to constraint, feareth not more than he loveth; But give thy son his way, he will hate thee and scorn thee together. The master of a well-ordered home knoweth to be kind to his servants; Yet he exacteth reverence, and each one feareth at his post. There is nothing on earth so lowly, but duty giveth it importance; No station so degrading, but it is ennobled by obedience: Yea, break stones upon the highway, acknowledging the Lord in thy lot, Happy shalt thou be, and honourable, more than many children of the mighty. Thou that despisest the outward forms, beware thou lose not the inward spirit; For they are as words unto ideas, as symbols to things unseen. Keep then the form that is good; retain, and do reverence to example; And in all things observe subordination, for that is the whole duty of man.